Cleveland: Down But Not Out, New Women's League

Despite losing the bid for a NWSL team, the Cleveland Soccer Group isn’t ready to hang up its cleats. In fact, the group is doubling down on a new soccer league to prove its ready for the big leagues.

First, let’s introduce the newest professional women’s soccer league, WPSL Pro. It will launch as a Division II women’s professional league in 2026. It emerged from the foundation of the Women’s Premier Soccer League, the largest amateur women’s soccer league in the world. It’s served as a launch point for several familiar names - like Alex Morgan.

So how does Cleveland play into this? Well, the Cleveland Soccer Group is going to field a WPSL Pro team as a founding club while also investing in the league itself. CSG will lead the league’s initial funding round, joining other markets including Atlanta, Dallas, North Carolina, Oklahoma City, Sioux Falls and San Francisco.

Gina Prodan Kelly, CSG’s Chief Marketing Officer, had this to say, “Through this Division II team, we felt like we could create a really strong foundation, not only talent-wise, but commercially. So, being able to launch this team and be able to draw however many thousands of fans, we will create a commercially successful business. We’d be able to show the NWSL, which is our long-term goal, that we have this team, we have this ecosystem, we have this fan base.”

You’ll remember, CSG put in a bid to join the NWSL but lost that bid to Denver. Sounds to me like they aren’t giving up and are ready to show they have what it takes.

Aside from supporting the WPSL Pro, CSG also revealed plans for a new stadium in downtown Cleveland, set to open in 2026. It will be home to the WPSL Pro team and a new MLS Next Pro men’s team.

You can learn more about the WPSL Pro and CSG’s involvement on the WPSL Pro site.

Check out this great story from News 5 Cleveland.